Huntsville gazette., 1887-06-25

After solidifying under this pressure
for two hours the twelve-sheet layers
are kept for week in 2 drying-room
heated to 100 degrees F.; several Of
these layers are in turn pasted together,
pressed and dried for a second week,
and still again these disks are pasted,
pressed and given a third drying Of a
whole month. The result is circular
block, containing from 100 to 16O
sheets of the original paper, compressed
to 81 or ~ inches thickness. and of
solidity, density and weight suggesting
metal rather than fiber.
The paper wheel is made up of this
disk of compressed paper, surrounded
by steel tire, and fitted with cast
iron hub, which is bored for the axle;
wrought-iron plates protect the paper
disk on either side, and all are bolted
together by two circles of bolts, one
set passing through a fange of the tire
and the other through dange of the
hub, and both through the paper center
and its protecting plates.
The real service of the paper is in in
terposing non-vibrating substance be-
tween the axle and the tire, so that the
vibrations, which in some unknown
way rearrange the atoms of metal so
that it brittles and breaks after lon e
wear, are prevented. Nature always
provides some way of wearing things
out, whether it be man, lest he lag SUI
perfous on the stage, or ''the everlast-
ing hills" themselves, but in the case OF
compressed paper, art seems to have got
ahead of nature, for it seems not to wear
out at all. The steel tires of these
wheels do wear down, and are then re.
turned in a lathe to smaller diameter
but when they are gone and are taken
of, the paper block appears again as
good as new, and ready for a new
tire. The paper wheel has the one dis
advantage of greater cost. but its
longer life and greater safety are in its
favor.
''Straw lumber" SO called, is SINH
lar application of paper for building
purposes; it is used, not for posts or
beams, but in place of lath and plas-
ter, for sheathing, etc. An ordinary
"straw-board" paper is made on the
cylinder machine-the refuse bedding
of stables being very largely utilized
as the material-and is run through
vat Of resin and other water-proofne
material heated to $500 F. A numbe,
of sheets are then placed together be
tween metal plates, and subjected like
the car wheels to enormous pressure iE
a hydraulic press. The result is a very
hard and solid blackish board, about
three-sixteenths of an inch thick,
which can be cut with saw or chisel,
and is marketed in slabs II feet by 81
inches, at a price Of about $40 per
thousand feet. This is now in use also
for the interior of railway cars and for
perforated chair seats. Building pa
per" of the ordinary sort is coarse
paper of straw or waste used for
sheathing or lining wooden houses. 1t
was put to good use Immediately after
the Chicago fire, when a Western paper
company lined the 10000 houses, 16 by
20, which were run up to accommodate
the homeless, with this material, at
cost of $5 for each house.
The non-conducting quality of paper
has caused curious Development in
America of the paper-box industry, so
that the lover Of oysters may "take
home fry in box to keep it hot, or
a brick of ice-cream to keep it cool.
The Chinese and japanese are said to
make paper clothes, and their hand
kerchiefs and napkins are we'll known
to us, but American achievements in
this direction have been confined chiefly
to paper collars, cuffs and blossoms"
sometimes with backing Of cloth,
which is conjoined with paper at some
mills by reeling the cloth off parallel
with the web of paper and pressing the
two permanently together between
rollers. The use of paper bags and
boxes by shopkeepers has reached enor-
nous proportions, and the latest prod
uct of American ingenuity is a ''self-
opening bag" completed automatically
from the web of Manila paper by a
machine on which its owners had been
at work for eight years. This is folded
fiat as it comes from the machine, but
single dexterous flap with the hand
opens it into an absolutely square
cornered bag which will stand upright
on the grocer's counter to be filled.
Paper buckets, barrels and other house
hold utensils are either made by join
ing the edges of fiat sheet into a
cylinder or by stamping out the form
from paper pulp, which last was the
basis Of the papier-mache of old days,
which was nodded safe into the desired
shape, coated with successive layers OF
asphalt varnish and polished down.
Paper pulp is also used in one process
of stereotyping to make matrix for
the type-metal.-R. r. Bopker, in
Harper's Magazine.